Seventy years since it became a republic, India has come a long way. But it is still failing on some key fronts.

Piped drinking water for all continues to be a pipe dream; homes and businesses are haunted by power outages; the lack of proper primary health care renders the poorest more vulnerable; millions of children coming out of schools lack rudimentary skills; and the security of lives and enterprises, a source of great anxiety, depends on private contractors.

Indians are seceding from dependence on the government for these most basic of services and are investing in the pay-and-plug economy. They have internalized the incapacity of the state to deliver these and are opting for private providers despite the costs. But can India sustain private republics amidst public failures in a landscape scarred by social and economic fault lines? What are the possible solutions? Can government reinvent itself?

The Gated Republic presents an interrogative view of the history and future of private India.

A complex tale of idealism, negotiation and realpolitik records how a revolution was engineered.

Aadhaar was born in July 2009, yoking modern technology and management expertise to political will. The biometric-based unique identification system, built by tech czar Nandan Nilekani and his team of innovators, was designed to enable subsidies and social spends reach their true destination, plug institutional corruption and save trillions of tax-rupees. In July 2017, Aadhaar is 1.15 billion identities and growing.

In Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-digit Revolution, senior journalist Shankkar Aiyar traces the history of this ambitious, controversial undertaking. He speaks with President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Rahul Gandhi and others to document how politicians with diametrically opposed ideologies were equally determined to propel Aadhaar.

Aiyar maps how Aadhaar’s application expanded beyond its original intent. He researches its ups, downs and turnarounds; discusses the concerns of activists and bureaucrats on potential misuse of the database for state surveillance; raises the urgent need for a data-protection and privacy law and spells out the solutions.

An unusual contemporary dramatization, this book is a breathless ride through recent changes in India’s political and economic landscape.

Aadhaar is the most ambitious programme India has ever undertaken. It has crossed 1.15 billion unique identities – and growing. What caused Prime Minister Narendra Modi to so strongly back a programme that he had vociferously attacked at one time? Why does the government ask that all services, from private services like mobile phones and bank accounts to public ones like social spends, be linked to Aadhaar? Is biometric data, that most intimate of personal information, safe in the servers of the UIDAI? Does it breach privacy?

Senior journalist Shankkar Aiyar offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Modi government views Aadhar.

A complex tale of idealism, negotiation and realpolitik records how a revolution was engineered.

Aadhaar was born in July 2009, yoking modern technology and management expertise to political will. The biometric-based unique identification system, built by tech czar Nandan Nilekani and his team of innovators, was designed to enable subsidies and social spends reach their true destination, plug institutional corruption and save trillions of tax-rupees. In July 2017, Aadhaar is 1.15 billion identities and growing.

In Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-digit Revolution, senior journalist Shankkar Aiyar traces the history of this ambitious, controversial undertaking. He speaks with President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Rahul Gandhi and others to document how politicians with diametrically opposed ideologies were equally determined to propel Aadhaar.

Aiyar maps how Aadhaar’s application expanded beyond its original intent. He researches its ups, downs and turnarounds; discusses the concerns of activists and bureaucrats on potential misuse of the database for state surveillance; raises the urgent need for a data-protection and privacy law and spells out the solutions.

An unusual contemporary dramatization, this book is a breathless ride through recent changes in India’s political and economic landscape.

A complex tale of idealism, negotiation and realpolitik records how a revolution was engineered.

Aadhaar was born in July 2009, yoking modern technology and management expertise to political will. The biometric-based unique identification system, built by tech czar Nandan Nilekani and his team of innovators, was designed to enable subsidies and social spends reach their true destination, plug institutional corruption and save trillions of tax-rupees. In July 2017, Aadhaar is 1.15 billion identities and growing.

In Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-digit Revolution, senior journalist Shankkar Aiyar traces the history of this ambitious, controversial undertaking. He speaks with President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Rahul Gandhi and others to document how politicians with diametrically opposed ideologies were equally determined to propel Aadhaar.

Aiyar maps how Aadhaar’s application expanded beyond its original intent. He researches its ups, downs and turnarounds; discusses the concerns of activists and bureaucrats on potential misuse of the database for state surveillance; raises the urgent need for a data-protection and privacy law and spells out the solutions.

An unusual contemporary dramatization, this book is a breathless ride through recent changes in India’s political and economic landscape.

A complex tale of idealism, negotiation and realpolitik records how a revolution was engineered.

Aadhaar was born in July 2009, yoking modern technology and management expertise to political will. The biometric-based unique identification system, built by tech czar Nandan Nilekani and his team of innovators, was designed to enable subsidies and social spends reach their true destination, plug institutional corruption and save trillions of tax-rupees. In July 2017, Aadhaar is 1.15 billion identities and growing.

In Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12-digit Revolution, senior journalist Shankkar Aiyar traces the history of this ambitious, controversial undertaking. He speaks with President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, Yashwant Sinha, Rahul Gandhi and others to document how politicians with diametrically opposed ideologies were equally determined to propel Aadhaar.

Aiyar maps how Aadhaar’s application expanded beyond its original intent. He researches its ups, downs and turnarounds; discusses the concerns of activists and bureaucrats on potential misuse of the database for state surveillance; raises the urgent need for a data-protection and privacy law and spells out the solutions.

An unusual contemporary dramatization, this book is a breathless ride through recent changes in India’s political and economic landscape.